Monitor question : Widescreen or not

[DetConan]

Hi,

Thinking of changing my CRT monitor (a NEC Multisync 75) for a LCD. Initially, i was thinking of a standard 19inch because i do not look at DVD, but use my computer mostly for gaming (and my wife for photos, internet, etc.). But I saw on the net many people being very happy with a WideScreen monitor for gaming.

My question is this : I will never have a killing machine (presently i have a 3200+ with à 7600 GT videocard) so is it a good idea to buy a monitor bigger than a 19 inch ? Will my computer have difficulty running the games on a bigger screen with higher native resolution ? Will a Widescreen monitor requires a more powerful rig ? Will my old games (Starcraft, Heroes of might and magic, Baldur's Gate) suffer on a Widescreen monitor ?

Thanks

 

[mercanucaribe]

A 19" wide is only 1440x900, and a 20" or 22" will be 1680x1050.. it depends on the games. I much prefer gaming on a wide screen though.

 

[HannibalX]

I have the 22" Samsung wide screen LCD (225 bw I think) and love it.

Get the larger wide screen. Your eyes will thank you.

 

[Bat123Man]

The 19 inch screen is a great deal. I got a 19 inch by LG (5ms response, 2000:1 contrast) on sale for 250 Canadian. To get a 20" jumped me to just over 400. It didn't seem worth it for an extra inch. Most of the newer games support widescreen mode, and I can tell you they have certain advantages. For instance, in Far Cry which natively supports widescreen, in order to maintain a correct aspect ratio, you get to see more of your surroundings. So think of it as if you were playing a First-person shooter online, your peripheral vision is 20% greater than non-widescreen players. That gives you an edge. For older games, there is often an answer which requires changing a few settings. You can find them here :

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/

That site gives you the solution to maintain the correct aspect ratio in many games. I love widescreen, I am never going back.

BM.

 

[imported_kiwik]

I was using a 17" CRT until I jumped in the widescreen LCD bandwagon. Everytime I sit in front of another screen, I find it so small and ugly. I'm really happy with my screen, gaming on it is damn nice at 1680x1050, and I don't mind all that much the stretching on the old games so I'm really happy.

 

[StopSign]

Widescreen is certainly nice in shooters but for general usage I prefer 5:4.

 

[kalrith]

OP,

If you know anyone with a WS and can borrow it or play some games on it, I highly recommend doing so. I was looking at getting a 20-22" WS last year. The idea of it sounded great, and tons of people prefer them to regular screens, so I thought it was a pretty sure thing that I would like it too. I borrowed a 20" WS from work for a weekend and found out that it wasn't for me. I kept feeling like the screen was too short. I mainly played Quake 4 on it, which is a first-person shooter, but I just didn't see the same appeal that most other people seem to.

So, whether or not you like WS is largely personally preference. I personally went with the Samsung 204B, which is a 20.1" non-WS that runs at 1600x1200 resolution. I absolutely love it. I snagged it for $290 at Best Buy last year. It was the same price as Newegg, except that I had to pay tax. It was worth the extra money to have them hook it up to make sure there were no dead pixels before I even left the store. They said that if it did have dead pixels, then I'd be able to swap it for another one. I would hate to spend $300 on a monitor and for it to have any dead pixels, let alone 7, which still wouldn't qualify under Newegg's return policy.

One actual advantage of a regular screen over WS is the number of pixels and the screen size. A 20" WS has 1680x1050 pixels. When compared to 1600x1200 resolution, with the WS you are gaining 80 horizontal pixels but losing 150 vertical pixels. Put another way your screen space is 5% wider but 12.5% shorter. The physical screen size is also smaller. A 20" WS is 10.7" tall and 17" wide; a 20" non-WS is 12.1" tall and 16.1" wide. The WS is 5.6% wider, but 11.6% shorter.

I haven't checked the prices lately, but when I purchased my monitor, the 20" WS and non-WS were both the same price, so I got more physical screen size and more screen real estate (aka more pixels) for the same price. If the non-WS are more expensive than WS now, then this analysis might be moot.

Anyways, I just wanted to share a different point of view. Someone else on here shared the same thing with me, and it got me to try out the WS before buying one. I was very thankful for the advice.

 

[Boyo]

I'm running a 19" widescreen now and I love it. It wasn't worth the money to me to get the 20", which would have run me about an extra $200 or so....Games look great. I run COD 2 and I am impressed.

 

[zodder]

I went from an NEC 22" CRT to a Dell 2407 24" WS and I thank God I did.

 

[grohl]

Originally posted by: zodder
I went from an NEC 22" CRT to a Dell 2407 24" WS and I thank God I did.

I want to make a similar upgrade...what video card do you have pushing that thing? DId youhave a drop in FPS?

 

[RebateMonger]

Monitor aspect ratio is a personal choice.

Personally, I dislike WideScreen LCD monitors. They used to be HORRIBLE buys, since they cost more but displayed less information than a comparable standard monitor. However, their price has dropped a lot in the last year.

My personal preference for actually doing WORK is to use dual standard-aspect 19-inch monitors. They are dirt cheap and are much more usable than a single WS monitor.

But if your main interest is running WS-supported games or watching wide-screen movies on your computer, then a large WS monitor would be the way to go.

 

[yosuke188]

I personally think that widescreen is not worth it unless you are going above 20 inch.

 

[xitshsif]

Originally posted by: grohl

Originally posted by: zodder
I went from an NEC 22" CRT to a Dell 2407 24" WS and I thank God I did.

I want to make a similar upgrade...what video card do you have pushing that thing? DId youhave a drop in FPS?

I love my 2407fpw. I have a 512MB x1900xt driving mine.

 

[Leros]

I have 2007FP, 20.1" widescreen. Its been great in all the recent games, but I have had trouble with older games.

Age of Empires 2 and Starcraft both crash when I open them in a widescreen resolution, however they work fine in a 4:3 resolution. Some monitors let you run 4:3 with black bars on the side instead of the picture being stretched out. That might be something to check before you make your purchase.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Monitor aspect ratio is a personal choice.

Personally, I dislike WideScreen LCD monitors. They used to be HORRIBLE buys, since they cost more but displayed less information than a comparable standard monitor. However, their price has dropped a lot in the last year.

My personal preference for actually doing WORK is to use dual standard-aspect 19-inch monitors. They are dirt cheap and are much more usable than a single WS monitor.

But if your main interest is running WS-supported games or watching wide-screen movies on your computer, then a large WS monitor would be the way to go.

I personally think that widescreen is not worth it unless you are going above 20 inch.

I agree with both of these posts. A 20" widescreen is pushing it in terms of screen size for me -- it's smaller than a 19" 1280x1024 LCD in terms of screen area. And for doing desktop work, I find it's nicer to have dual 4:3/5:4 displays (so you can, for instance, maximize one application on each monitor).

If you watch a lot of HD/movie content on your PC, or you play games that support widescreen resolutions, a wide display is probably the way to go.

 

[DNyholm]

I went from a 19" CRT to a 22" WS. I didn't realize that I was running the 19" at 800x600, so switching to the 1680x1050 gave me A LOT more screen size. Though it did make it a little more difficult to see websites (read) from far away since the font is much smaller than I was used to. It'll take me a little while to get used to, but I can already tell that the extra real estate from the widescreen is great for the game that I play (everquest 2). It didn't slow the game down at all switching to those higher resolutions either and my current system is pretty antiquated (2.4 Pentium 4, ti 4200 768 MB ram, etc...), it might make a difference on a more graphic intensive game then.

 

[imported_kiwik]

Originally posted by: Leros
I have 2007FP, 20.1" widescreen. Its been great in all the recent games, but I have had trouble with older games.

Age of Empires 2 and Starcraft both crash when I open them in a widescreen resolution, however they work fine in a 4:3 resolution. Some monitors let you run 4:3 with black bars on the side instead of the picture being stretched out. That might be something to check before you make your purchase.

I heard people say that it was a videocard feature. Can't find it on my X1900XT drivers tho.

 

[kalrith]

Originally posted by: kiwik

Originally posted by: Leros
I have 2007FP, 20.1" widescreen. Its been great in all the recent games, but I have had trouble with older games.

Age of Empires 2 and Starcraft both crash when I open them in a widescreen resolution, however they work fine in a 4:3 resolution. Some monitors let you run 4:3 with black bars on the side instead of the picture being stretched out. That might be something to check before you make your purchase.

I heard people say that it was a videocard feature. Can't find it on my X1900XT drivers tho.

If you go to www.widescreengamingforum.com and search for those games, they might tell you how to tweak your game to run in widescreen mode. For Warcraft 3, for example, I had to go into the bios and change two values to 1680 and 1050 in order to get it to run in that resolution. Warcraft 3, like a lot of the older games, just stretches the screen to that resolution, but it does allow you to run at your native res.

 

[imported_Imp]

Cool, I also have a 3200+ and a 7600gt and worrying about performance slightly. I've only 'just' upgraded toa 17" LCD 1.5 years ago, and just want more in terms of size. Think I'll probably go for a WS around summer-ish. From my research and casual store viewing: a 19" standard is way too tall and dwarves the thin horizontal view, 19" WS is too short & not wide enough, 20" WS pretty good comprimise though still a bit short, 22" WS is too wide and hueg. Seems like a 21" would be the perfect size, but there are only like a few panels that size.

If you play FPS games and ever got annoyed at having too thin a peripheral view, then a WS should be for you. That and text-size. A 19" 5:4 should be among those with the largest text so if you went 19" WS, the text is comparable or less than a 17" 5:4. Performancy wise, truth is, it doesn't matter how crappy your system is, you'll eventually make do with what you have. If it comes to it, you will sacrifice the native resolution for performance or turn stuff down, but in the end, you'll still have a WS picture or black bars. And that is how I will sleep at night when I pick up a large WS.

 

[ShadowBlade]

the only downside i can find to mine is finding really good wallpapers (20.1" wide)

 

[oogabooga]

Widescreen. I switched to a dell fp2005 (I think that is what it is) and haven't regretted it.

Originally posted by: ShadowBlade
the only downside i can find to mine is finding really good wallpapers (20.1" wide)

There are some pretty amazing widescreen collections out there. While it isn't -as easy- the screeens you find are pretty amazing

 

[Auric]

Wide format does not imply wider. Indeeed, to reiterate it oft means shorter. So 'tis good for saving space if the exclusive useage is just viewing wide content but bad for viewing and creating documents, web pages, photos, movies, and generally getting schtuff done.

Or another way to answer the OP's query is yes, a "wide" display (smaller area) will require a less powerful rig compared to running the equivalent horizontal sized "narrow" display (larger area) at their native (maximum) resolutions.

However, if sure to get a 4:3 (or 5:4) display with aspect ratio control and/or use a graphics card with same (Nvidia, not ATI), then one can benefit from a large area while still being able to run lower resolutions if the "wide" gaming experience or lower demands are desired. The maximum horizontal resolution (or at least close to it) is still preferable or else the image may become too small without allowing Blur-O-Vision scaling.

By comparing various resolutions and their areas we see the so-called "wide" screens of course have lower pixel pushing power requirements than their "narrow" brethren at native resolutions however, interestingly, the 4:3 or 5:4 at 16:10 actually beat them there too.

1600x1200 = 1920000 4:3 native
1600x1000 = 1600000 @ 16:10
vs
1680x1050 = 1764000 16:10 native

1400x1050 = 1470000 4:3 native
1400x0875 = 1120000 @ 16:10
or
1280x1024 = 1310720 5:4 native
1280x0960 = 1228800 @ 4:3
1280x0800 = 1024000 @ 16:10
vs
1440x0900 = 1296000 16:10 native

 

[DetConan]

So, if i understand well (english is not my natural language), as my wife loves to surf the net and do some scrapbooking, etc. (when i do not play games), a WS would not be suitable for her ? And to choose a larger monitor would probably means smaller font (which is again not good for her) and a more powerful computer ? But i do not understand the ratio part of your reply. Could you explain ?

Originally posted by: Auric
Wide format does not imply wider. Indeeed, to reiterate it oft means shorter. So 'tis good for saving space if the exclusive useage is just viewing wide content but bad for viewing and creating documents, web pages, photos, movies, and generally getting schtuff done.

Or another way to answer the OP's query is yes, a "wide" display (smaller area) will require a less powerful rig compared to running the equivalent horizontal sized "narrow" display (larger area) at their native (maximum) resolutions.

However, if sure to get a 4:3 (or 5:4) display with aspect ratio control and/or use a graphics card with same (Nvidia, not ATI), then one can benefit from a large area while still being able to run lower resolutions if the "wide" gaming experience or lower demands are desired. The maximum horizontal resolution (or at least close to it) is still preferable or else the image may become too small without allowing Blur-O-Vision scaling.

 

[corkyg]

I have both - wide on my laptop and regular 4:3 on my desktop. I find it reazlly makes no difference at all to me - I do the same work on both.

Basically wide is simply vertically shorter and requires more vertical scrolling because stuff on the web is pretty much constant in width.

 

[Kartajan]

let me make it simple; I went from a 19" 4:3 to a 20" 16:10.

My 19" LCD had more vertical pixels.

For general useage my experience is mixed.
"Office" type apps, I rotate my screen so my wide is vertical, and I see my documents in the format that they will print in.
"surfing" is mixed, many sites were not written to support "wide"
Gaming- For FPS and racing games, when the support is there (natively or via hacks) wide is "da bomb", other games- wide is useless so far.
TV/ Video- if you like to watch wide, wide is all that. Broadcast TV kills me, since most of the world is square (4:3)